The Legend of Korra dropped out of adventure mode a bit this week to focus on two of its key families: the Beifongs and the Aang clan. But while the children of Toph and Aang worked out their differences, our merry band of villains is having all the fun.

In the first of last night's two episodes, our core team is still in Zaofu dealing with the tension between Lin and her sister Su. While Lin refuses to talk to anyone after hurling her temper at Opal, Su's truth sayer convinces her to see an acupuncturist, insisting that she's repressing something.

The Metalbending healer manages to unlock some of the memories that Lin keeps buried just beneath the surface. When they were younger, Su fell in with some low-level Triads and when Lin tried to arrest her for driving a getaway car, Su fought back, accidentally giving Lin that distinctive facial scar. Toph, not wanting to see her daughter go to prison, sent Su away and covered up the arrest instead, and Lin always blamed Toph's subsequent retirement from the police force on her mother's guilt over letting Su get away.

There's a significant moment amidst all of this, when Lin briefly hallucinates that Korra is a young version of her sister. The implication is that one of the reasons Lin has always been cranky with the Avatar because she reminded Lin of the young, rebellious Su.

Lin decides to work out her differences with Su the best way she knows how: with a duel. Well, okay, first she yells at Su a bit, but when Su goes for a below-the-belt verbal shot about why Tenzin broke up with Lin, Lin decides fighting is the way to go. Everyone stays out of their way until Opal finds a bit of backbone and stands up to her mother (and, at the same time, Lin) for the first time, Airbending their weapons away before they can crush each other. Lin collapses, but she wakes refreshed, finally willing to make amends.

I suppose this means that Lin is taking off her cranky pants for the rest of the season. Hopefully it also means a more rational Lin than we've seen over the last season and a half, but I imagine this won't dull her edge. She'll need it when Zaheer's gang catches up with the Avatar.

Oh, and Sokka—ahem, I mean Bolin—and Opal are very sweet. It will be interesting to see how their relationship develops, especially now that Opal will be training with the Air Nomads.

Zaheer's gang gets the biggest adventure this episode as they stage their escape from Republic city. I would happily watch entire episodes of these four causing mayhem. Plus, I'm really digging P'Li's hair.

And when does Varrick's magnetic suit of armor come back as Checkov's gun?

The second episode takes us to the Northern Air Temple, where Tenzin is having a tricky time with his new crop of Airbenders. Tenzin is being typical Tenzin, sinking his students into the academia of Airbending, which bores all but one of them to tears.

Tenzin takes Korra's advice to look for Bumi's help in whipping the Airbenders into shape. The Tenzin-Bumi drama can get a bit wearisome, because we've seen it all before. Bumi has always envied Tenzin's close ties to their father and Tenzin is annoyed by Bumi's freewheeling personality. But at least this is resolved with a bit of genuine drama when Kai and Jinora are kidnapped by a group of bison poachers. It's also another nice example of the Airbenders being bonded by using their abilities to fight crime. They're more likely to become a community of Air Nomads if they feel that they are strong together.

Also, the door is open to Tenzin recognizing Jinora as an Airbending master. When do we get to see bald Jinora?